We join Red Banner Sister in the midst of a top-secret mission to the American West, which she stipulates will not be discussed in this interview. She has, however, agreed to answer a selection of questions from the famous Proust Questionnaire:

What is your greatest fear?
That the Revolution doesn’t actually need “this kind of idiot” any longer.

Interviewer’s note: Red Banner Sister is referring to the following quote by Chinese folk hero Lei Feng, “Someone said I’m an idiot, but that is not true. I just want to be a person who is good for our people and the motherland. If this kind of person is an idiot, I’d rather be an idiot because revolution and construction need this kind of idiot.”

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Lei Feng, obviously.

Which living person do you most admire?
Spray-painted on a wall, I once read, “Jesus is alive!” I understand that he was born over 2000 years ago, so I greatly admire his “stick-to-itiveness!” Is the Mediterranean Diet his secret?

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My inability to harness quantum mechanics to better “serve the people” by being in more than one place at a time.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Their inability to understand that I am trying to help them.

On what occasions do you lie?
Only within the specifications of my mission.

Interviewer’s note: Red Banner Sister, on a secret mission for her government, is answering these questions from an undisclosed location which she has code-named “Miguel’s Baja Mexican Grill located on Main Street in Moab, Utah.”

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Self-publishing a revolutionary e-pamphlet titled: Revolution From Within or: How to Stop Worrying and ‘Be that Kind of Idiot.’

What is your most treasured possession?
A rock I collected as a child while scavenging for wild food in the Oquirrh Mountains. Someone once told me it might be a “seer stone” but sometimes I think a stone is just a stone.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Tex-Mex food with vanilla yogurt in place of sour cream. This insult to enchiladas exists in Chiang Mai.

What is it that you most dislike?
False advertising, such as the American “Tea Party,” which delivers neither cake nor joy.

How would you like to die?
At the age of 120, in perfect health, via sudden attack by (still-then existing) wild tigers.

15 responses to “Exclusive interview: Red Banner Sister”

Bwhahaha…hilarious! Also love that picture of you working the fields. Now all you need is a black-haired wig with a braid on each side and some ill-fitting Mao suit and another baby you can strap on the front. An ox in the background would also be nice.

Tex-Mex with vanilla yogurt, that somewhat reminds me of the time I ordered a chocolate shake in Jakarta. Essentially, it was a cocoa powder (sugarless) shake served with sugar syrup on the side. That restaurant, Hot Planet, doesn’t exist anymore, but they did serve good lumpiah.

You are brave to order a chocolate milk shake outside of N America. The only promising milk shake I’ve had in Asia has been at Triple O’s, a Canadian hamburger chain with locations in Hong Kong. Hot Planet sounds like a dreadful name for a restaurant in the tropics.